June 29, 2012 <Back to Index>
PAGE SPONSOR |
Generaloberst Ludwig August Theodor Beck (29 June 1880 – 20 July 1944) was a German general and Chief of the German General Staff during the early years of the Nazi regime in Germany before World War II. Originally a supporter of the Nazis, he broke with Adolf Hitler and eventually became the major leader of the conspiracy against Hitler. He would have been provisional head of state had the 20 July plot succeeded. When the plot failed, Beck chose to commit suicide with a pistol.
Born in Biebrich (now a borough of Wiesbaden, Hesse) in Hessen - Nassau, he was educated in the Prussian military tradition. He served on the Western Front in
World War I as a staff officer. After the war he served in various
staff and command appointments. In 1931 – 1932, he led the group of army
writers, at the Department of the Army (Truppenamt) which published the German Army Operations Manual entitled Truppenführung.
The first section was promulgated in 1933 and the second section in
1934. A modified version is still in use today by the Federal German
Army. He was promoted to the rank of Generalleutnant in 1932 and, two years later, he replaced General Wilhelm Adam as chief of the Truppenamt, the camouflaged General Staff (the Treaty of Versailles explicitly forbade the existence of the General Staff). In September – October 1930, Beck was a leading defense witness at the trial in Leipzig of three junior officers, Lieutenant Richard Scheringer, Hans Friedrich Wendt and Hans Ludin. The three men were charged with membership in the Nazi Party; at that time membership in political parties was forbidden for members of the Reichswehr.
The three officers admitted to Nazi Party membership, and used as their
defence the claim that the Nazi Party membership should not be
forbidden to Reichswehr personnel. When the three officers were arrested after being caught red-handed distributing Nazi literature at their base, Beck, who was the commanding officer of the 5th Artillery Regiment based in Ulm, which the three Nazi officers belonged to, was highly furious and argued that since the Nazi Party was a force for good that Reichswehr personnel should not be banned from joining the Nazi Party. At the preliminary hearing, Beck spoke on behalf of the three officers. At
the Leipzig trial of Ludin and Scheringer, Beck testified as to the
good character of the accused, described the Nazi Party as a positive
force in German life, and proclaimed his belief that the Reichswehrban
on Nazi Party membership in his opinion should be rescinded. When
Lieutenant Scheringer spoke of a future war in which the Nazi Party and
the Reichswehr were to fight hand in hand as brothers in a "war of liberation" to overthrow the Treaty of Versailles, Beck supported Scheringer by testifying that: "The Reichswehr is told daily that it is an army of leaders. What is a young officer to understand by that?". Historians such as Sir John Wheeler - Bennett have noted that Beck was deliberately distorting Hans von Seeckt's Führerarmee ("Army
of leaders" i.e. training soldiers to be leaders when the time came to
expand the Army beyond the limits permitted by Versailles) principle by
seeking to apply it to politics. During the course of the 1930 Leipzig trial, Beck first met Adolf Hitler who also testified at the trial, and was very favourably impressed. In 1933, upon witnessing the Nazi Machtergreifung,
Beck wrote "I have wished for years for the political revolution, and
now my wishes have come true. It is the first ray of hope since 1918." In July 1934, Beck expressed some alarm at Nazi foreign policy involving Germany in a "premature war", after the failed Nazi putsch in
Austria, leading Beck to warn that those in "leading positions" must
understand that foreign adventures at this time might lead to Germany
being forced to make a "humiliating retreat" that might in Beck's view,
unfortunately end Nazi Germany. In August 1934, when following the death of President Paul von Hindenburg,
and Hitler's assumption of the roles of powers of the Presidency, most
notably the position of Commander - in - Chief, Beck wrote that Hitler's
move created "favourable conditions" for the Reichswehr. Beck gained respect with the publication of his tactical manual, Truppenführung. Both Beck and General Werner von Fritsch commanded the 1st Cavalry Division, in Frankfurt an der Oder prior to assuming their command positions. During his time first as Chief of the Truppenamt (1933 – 1935), and then as Chief of the General Staff (1935 – 1938), Beck encouraged the development of armoured forces, though not to the extent that advocates of Panzer warfare like Heinz Guderian wanted. In
Beck's conception of power politics, it was crucial to have German
military power restored to its pre 1919 levels, and from the latter
half of 1933, advocated a level of military spending beyond even those
considered by Hitler. In Beck's opinion, once Germany was sufficiently rearmed, the Reich should
wage a series of wars that would establish Germany as Europe's foremost
power, and place all of Central and Eastern Europe into the German
sphere of influence. As Chief of the General Staff, Beck lived in a modest home in the Lichterfelde suburb of Berlin, and worked normally from 9:00 AM to 7:00 PM every day. As
General Staff Chief, Beck was widely respected for his intelligence and
work ethic, but was often criticized by other officers for being too
interested in administrative details. In 1934, Beck wrote a lengthy covering letter to a long report on the British Army armour maneuvers as a way of encouraging interest in armoured warfare. In Beck's view of the General Staff's role, the War Minister served in a mere administrative function, and the Chief of the General Staff should have been able to advise the Reich leadership directly, views that led to conflicts with the War Minister, Field Marshal Werner von Blomberg, who resented Beck's efforts to diminish his powers. In 1936, Beck strongly supported Hitler during the remilitarization of the Rhineland against Blomberg, who feared the French reaction to such a move. By
the end of 1937 and the beginning of 1938, Beck had come into
increasing conflict with other officers over the place and importance
of the General Staff in the German military hierarchy, in which Beck
wished to have all of the important decision making moved into the arms
of the General Staff. Starting
in the mid 1930s, Beck created his own intelligence network comprising
German military attaches, which he used both to collect information,
and to leak information. Besides
military attaches, Beck also recruited civilians for his private
intelligence network, of which the most notable volunteer was Carl Goerdeler. In May 1937, Beck refused an order to draw up orders for executing Fall Otto (Case
Otto), the German plan for an invasion of Austria under the grounds
that such a move might cause a world war before Germany was ready for
such a war. During the Anschluss of
February - March 1938, once Beck was convinced that no war would result
from a move against Austria, he swiftly drew up the orders for Fall Otto. In
Beck's conception of power politics, war was a necessary part of
restoring Germany to Great Power status provided that these wars were
limited in scope and Germany possessed sufficient strength and had
sufficiently strong allies. During the Blomberg - Fritsch Crisis of
early 1938, Beck saw a chance to reassert the interests and power of
the Army against what he regarded as the too mighty power of the SS. The ending of the crisis in favor of the SS left Beck somewhat disillusioned. Beck resented Adolf Hitler for
his efforts to curb the army's position of influence. Beck tried very
early, as Chief of the General Staff, to deter Hitler from using the
grievances of the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia, the population of which was mostly ethnic German, as an excuse for war against the latter state in 1938. Beck had no moral objection to the idea of war of aggression to eliminate Czechoslovakia as a state. In 1935, he had a series of meetings with Prince Bernard von Bülow, the State Secretary of the German Foreign Office and the Chief of the Hungarian General Staff to discuss plans "for the division of Czechoslovakia". On
12 November 1937, Beck submitted a memorandum stating that "various
facts" show the requirement "for an imminent solution by force" of the
problem of Czechoslovakia and that it was desirable to start preparing
"the political ground among those powers which stood on our side or who
were not against us", and that the "military discussion in either the
one case or the other should begin at once". However, Beck felt that Germany needed more time to rearm before starting such a war. In
Beck's assessment, the earliest date Germany could risk a war was 1940,
and any war started in 1938 would be a "premature war" that Germany
would lose. In the Hossbach Memorandum of
1937, Hitler had expressed his belief that the United Kingdom and
France would not intervene in the event of German aggression against
Austria and Czechoslovakia, a conviction strengthened by the Anschluss earlier in the year, and they would not stand in his way if he should try again to enlarge the Reich.
Beck, however, believed that the French would honor the terms of the
Franco - Czechoslovak alliance of 1924, and that, should France go to war
with Germany, Britain would then almost certainly enter the war on the
Allied side. He also felt that Germany didn't have the raw materials to
fight a European war. While
most of the generals felt the idea of starting a war in 1938 was highly
risky, none of them would confront Hitler with a refusal to carry out
orders, since the majority opinion was that Beck's arguments against
war in 1938 were flawed. From May 1938, Beck had bombarded Hitler, Wilhelm Keitel and Walther von Brauchitsch with memoranda opposing Fall Grün (Case Green), the plan for a war with Czechoslovakia. In the first of his memos, on 5 May 1938, Beck argued that the Sino - Japanese War meant Japan would be unable to come to Germany's aid, that the French Army was
the best fighting force in Europe, and that Britain was certain to
intervene on the side of France should Germany attack Czechoslovakia. In his May memo, Beck argued that Hitler's assumptions about France, made in the Hossbach Memorandum of
1937, were mistaken, and stated his belief that France "wishes for
peace or, perhaps more accurately, abhors a new war", but that "in case
of a real threat, or what is perceived by the people to be foreign
policy pressure, the French nation comes together as if one". Beck
stated in the same memo that Hitler was wrong about France being on the
verge of civil war and that, in the event of a German threat to
Czechoslovakia, the French would see such a threat as "a question of
honour... for which a strong government will have no difficulty pulling
itself together". Beck stated his belief that "The French army is and remains intact and is at the moment the strongest in Europe". Beck
ended his memo with the comments that: "The military economic situation
of Germany is bad, worse than in 1917 – 1918. In its current military,
military political and military economic condition, Germany cannot
expose itself to the risk of a long war". The
May Crisis of May 21 – 22, 1938 further convinced Beck of the dangers of
going to war in 1938, and led him to increase his efforts to stop a war
that he felt Germany could not win. In
November 1938, Beck informed a friend that, from the time of the May
Crisis, the only consideration in his mind was "How can I prevent a
war?". On
22 May 1938, Hitler stated that, though he had deep respect for Beck
for his pro-Nazi testimony at the Ulm trial of 1930, his views were too
much that of a Reichswehr general, and not enough of a Wehrmacht general. Hitler commented that Beck was "one of the officers still imprisoned in the idea of the hundred thousand man army". On 28 May 1938 Beck had a meeting with Hitler, the Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, Admiral Erich Raeder, Hermann Göring, Wilhelm Keitel, and Walther von Brauchitsch, during which Hitler restated the views he had first expressed in the Hossbach Memorandum. In
response, Beck drafted another memo on May 29, in which he presented a
case that the Czechoslovak Army was not, as Hitler argued, a weak
force, and that a limited regional war in Central Europe was not a
realistic possibility. In the same memo of May 29, Beck proclaimed his agreement with Hitler's views about the necessity of acquiring Lebensraum in Eastern Europe,
called the existence of Czechoslovakia "intolerable", and concluded
that "a way must be found to eliminate it (Czechoslovakia) as a threat
to Germany, even, if necessary, by war". However,
Beck argued that Germany was not strong enough to fight the general war
that would result from an attack on Czechoslovakia in 1938, and urged
Hitler to avoid a "premature war". In
particular, Beck argued that "It is not accurate to judge Germany today
as stronger than in 1914", and he presented a detailed military case
that more time was needed before the Wehrmacht would be as strong as the Army of 1914. Furthermore,
Beck contended that he could not "accept these estimates of the
military power of France and England... Germany, whether alone or in
alliance with Italy, is not in a position militarily to match England
or France". At
first, Beck felt that Hitler's rush to war in 1938 was not caused by
the Führer's personality, but was rather caused by Hitler
receiving poor military advice, especially from Keitel. As a result,
Beck spent much of his time urging a reorganization of the command
structure, so that Hitler would receive his advice from the General
Staff, and presumably abandon his plans for aggression. In
one of his memos opposing war in 1938, Beck commented: "Once again, the
comments of the Führer demonstrate the complete inadequacy of the
current top military advisory hierarchy. What is needed is continual,
competent advising of the commander - in - chief of
the Wehrmacht on questions of war leadership and above all on weapons
of war, with clear delineation of responsibilities. If steps are not
taken soon to produce a change in conditions, which have grown
intolerable; if the current anarchy becomes
a permanent condition; then the future destiny of the Wehrmacht in
peace and war, indeed the destiny of Germany in a future war, must be
painted in the blackest of colors". Only
in June 1938 did Beck realize that it was Hitler who was behind the
drive for war, and, in a memo to Brauchitsch, urge that all of the
senior officers threaten a mass collective resignation to force Hitler
to abandon his plans for Fall Grün in 1938. Beck
ended his appeal to Brauchitsch: "Now at stake are final decisions
regarding the fate of the nation. History will burden those leaders
with blood guilt if they do not act according to their professional and
statesmanly principles and knowledge. Their soldierly loyalty must end
at the boundary where their knowledge, conscience, and sense of
responsibility forbid the execution of an order. In case their advice
and warnings fall on deaf ears in such circumstances, then they have
the right and the duty, before the people and history, to resign their
offices. If they all act together, then it will be impossible to carry
out military action. They will thereby save the Fatherland from the
worst, from total ruin. If a soldier in a position of highest authority
in such times see his duties and tasks only within the limits of his
military responsibilities, without consciousness of his higher
responsibility to the whole people, then he shows a lack of greatness,
a lack of comprehension of responsibility. Extraordinary times demand
extraordinary actions!". On July 16, 1938, Beck wrote a memo stating that the Army might have to resolve unspecified "internal political" problems. Beck's campaign for a mass resignation was not aimed at the overthrow of
Hitler, but was rather intended to persuade Hitler to abandon his plans
for war in 1938, and to purge certain "radical" elements from the Nazi
Party, who Beck believed to have a negative influence on Hitler. Together with the Abwehr chief, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, and the German Foreign Office's State Secretary, Baron Ernst von Weizsäcker,
Beck was a leader of the "anti-war" group in the German government,
which was determined to avoid a war in 1938 that it felt Germany would
lose. This group was not necessarily committed to the overthrow of the
regime, but was loosely allied to another, more radical group, the
"anti-Nazi" fraction centered around Colonel Hans Oster and Hans Bernd Gisevius, which wanted to use the crisis as an excuse for executing a putsch to overthrow the Nazi regime. The divergent aims between these two factions produced considerable tensions. In a June 1938 Generalstabsreise (General
Staff study), Beck concluded that Germany could defeat Czechoslovakia,
but that to do so would leave western Germany empty of troops, thus
potentially allowing the French to seize the Rhineland with little difficulty. Beck maintained that Czechoslovak defences were very formidable, that Prague could
mobilize at least 38 divisions, and that at least 30 German divisions
would be needed to break through, requiring at a minimum a three
week long campaign. Beck concluded that Hitler's assumptions about a limited war in 1938 were
mistaken, and that he felt "as fateful, the military action against
Czechoslovakia, planned on the basis of these military premises, and
must explicitly disavow any responsibility of the general staff of the
Army for such action". In July 1938, upon being shown Beck's 5 May 1938 memo opposing Fall Grün by von Brauchitsch, Hitler called Beck's arguments "kindische Kräfteberechnungen" ("childish calculations"). In
another memo of July 1938, Beck contended that a war with
Czechoslovakia, France and Britain could only end in Germany's defeat,
and urged Hitler to postpone his plans for aggression until such a time
as Germany was strong enough for such a war. In late July 1938, Erich von Manstein, a leading protégé of Beck's, wrote to his mentor urging him to stay at his post, and place his faith in Hitler. On July 29, Beck wrote a memo stating the German Army had the duty to
prepare for possible wars with foreign enemies and "for an internal
conflict which need only take place in Berlin". The July 29 memo is normally considered the start of Becks efforts to overthrow the Nazi regime. At
the beginning of August 1938, Beck wrote a speech for Brauchitsch to
read before Hitler stating the Army's opposition to the "premature war"
likely to be triggered by Fall Grün, which, however, Brauchitsch chose not to deliver. In August 1938, Beck suggested to General Walther von Brauchitsch that a "house cleaning" of the Nazi regime was necessary, under which the influence of the SS be reduced, but Hitler would continue as dictator. At a 10 August summit of the leading generals of the Reich, Hitler spent much of the time attacking Beck's arguments against Fall Grün, and won the majority of the generals over. Colonel
General Beck resigned alone on 18 August, and left office on August 27.
He was replaced, as head of the General Staff, by General Franz Halder. At Hitler's request, Beck kept his resignation secret, and thus nullified the protest value of his resignation. Hitler promised Beck that if he kept his resignation secret, he would be
rewarded with a major field command, and Beck was much disillusioned
when he was instead put on the retired list. Beck
ceased to have any meaningful influence on German military affairs, and
increasingly came to rely upon contacts with the British in the hope
that London would successfully exert its influence on Hitler, where he
had failed to, through threats and warnings. His
opposition to Hitler brought him in contact with a small number of
senior officers intent on deposing the dictator. Some of them, including Carl Goerdeler and Ulrich von Hassell, would take part in the July 20 plot in 1944. Beck and his conspirators knew that Germany faced certain and rapid defeat if France and Great Britain came to the Czechs' aid in 1938. Accordingly, they contacted the British Foreign Office,
informed Britain of their plot, and asked for a firm British warning to
deter Hitler from attacking Czechoslovakia. In September 1938, British
Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, French President Édouard Daladier and Italian dictator Benito Mussolini signed the Munich Agreement, compelling Czechoslovakia to give up the Sudetenland, which put an end to the crisis, and hence Beck's efforts at a putsch. In the autumn of 1939, Beck was in contact with certain Germany Army officers, politicians, and civil servants, including General Halder, Dr. Hjalmar Schacht, Carl Goerdeler, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, and Colonel Hans Oster about the possibility of staging a putsch to overthrow the Nazi regime. By
this time, Beck had come to accept that it was not possible to
overthrow the Nazi regime while keeping Hitler in power. In the event
of the putsch being
successful, Germany was to be governed by a triumvirate of Beck,
Goerdeler and Schacht who would negotiate a peace with Britain and
France that would allow Germany to keep most of the Nazi conquests made
up until that time, including Austria, all of western Poland, and the Reich Protectorate of Bohemia - Moravia. In January - February 1940, a series of meetings between Goerdeler, Beck, Hassell and Johannes Popitz produced
agreement that when the Nazi regime was overthrown that Beck was to
head the Council of Regency that would govern Germany. In 1940 – 41, Beck spent much time discussing together with Goerdeler, Hassell, and Erwin von Witzleben which of the Hohenzollerns to put on the throne when the Nazi regime was overthrown, and the monarchy restored.
In 1943, Beck planned two abortive attempts to kill Hitler by means of a bomb. In May 1944, a memorandum by Field Marshal Erwin Rommel made it clear that his participation in the proposed putsch was based on the precondition that Beck serve as the head of state in the new government. In 1944 he was one of the driving forces of the 20 July plot with Carl Goerdeler and Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg. It was proposed that Beck would become the head of the provisional government that
would assume power in Germany after Hitler had been eliminated. The
plot failed, however, and by the next morning, according to the account
by Fabian von Schlabrendorff, Beck was in the custody of General Friedrich Fromm, and he offered to commit suicide ("accept
the consequences"). His last words were "I am thinking of earlier
times." Beck then shot himself. In severe distress, Beck succeeded only
in severely wounding himself, and a sergeant was brought in to
administer the coup de grâce by shooting Beck in the back of the neck.
|